Laura Carbonell

Laura Carbonell

"I Survived a Suicide Attempt."

Laura Carbonell is a writer and Spanish teacher in San Francisco. She was 47 years old when I interviewed her on April 18, 2013.

Laura: Writing about these things, setting them on paper, I think, is good. And helping people who feel the same.

Des: Yeah, the only downside is that people start to think, “Oh, you’re–”

Laura: Weird. […] People are afraid of dark.

Des: Well, [I’m] talking to people who have been there and then come back, so I don’t think that’s very dark.

There’s the good thing about it. We survived it and now, how can we deal with it? Every day, find a passion.

Laura: Exactly. There’s the good thing about it. We survived it and now, how can we deal with it? Every day, find a passion. My thing is, you have to find a passion, a way to express…because the pain of life. There’s this pain.

I think it’s more, there’s existential void, but it’s like constant. When I was 5, I was already thinking,what the fuck? I didn’t talk to other kids because I was already thinking, what am I doing here? And if I talked to other kids, they were not gonna understand me at 5. I remember that. I don’t remember more than that before that, but I’ve always lived with the existential void.

Once a year I read this book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” about this guy in the concentration camp and how they made it through. Every day they found a little something to survive the day, even if it was to get the bread from the guy who’s actually dying, but that kept them going for 24 hours.

And surrounding yourself with people who don’t care how you are or what you are.

…And surrounding yourself with people who don’t care how you are or what you are.

Des: Yeah, it’s important.

Laura: That helps me. And laugh a lot. I laugh a lot.

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Live Through This is a series of portraits and true stories of suicide attempt survivors. Its mission is to change public attitudes about suicide for the better; to reduce prejudice and discrimination against attempt survivors; to provide comfort to those experiencing suicidality by letting them know that they’re not alone and tomorrow is possible; to give insight to those who have trouble understanding suicidality, and catharsis to those who have lost a loved one; and to be used as a teaching tool for clinicians in training, or anyone else who might benefit from a deeper understanding of first-person experiences with suicide.

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Please Stay

If you’re hurting, afraid, or need someone to talk to, please reach out to one of the resources below. Someone will reach back. You are so deeply valued, so incomprehensibly loved—even when you can’t feel it—and you are worth your life.

If you don’t like talking on the phone, you can reach the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741. If you’d like to talk to a peer, warmline.org contains links to warmlines in every state. If you’re not in the U.S., click here for a link to crisis centers around the world.

Live Through This is dedicated to the lives of so many friends and family members lost to suicide over the years. If you would like to add the name of a loved one to this list, please email me.

Live Through This is dedicated to the lives of so many friends and family members lost to suicide over the years. If you would like to add the name of a loved one to this list, please email me.